Module-level printed interconnection for Si/CIGS/Pk modules designed for recycling

Purpose: to develop reliable and sustainable PV modules based on design-for-recycling principles, enabling easy assembly, easy disassembly and high-quality material recovery.

Challenges: Conventional PV modules use strongly bonded encapsulants, making disassembly and material recovery difficult. The challenge is to combine reliable operation with easy assembly and controlled end-of-life separation. This requires jointly designing interconnection, encapsulation and module architecture while reducing critical raw material use.

Gap: A major gap remains in developing a holistic module architecture in which metallization, interconnection, and encapsulation are jointly designed for both reliable operation and controlled end-of-life disassembly. Printed interconnection has received relatively limited attention as a design-for-recycling strategy, while most existing approaches focus primarily on the development of recyclable or reversible encapsulation materials.

Your mission, as a PhD candidate: to develop module-level printed interconnection architectures, select an appropriate bill of materials, and establish sustainable module assembly concepts that incorporate Design for Recycling (DfR) and efficient disassembly for high-quality material recovery from the outset.

 The approach: Jointly design printed interconnection architectures, encapsulation strategies and assembly processes following Design for Recycling and Design for Disassembly principles. Select suitable materials, fabricate prototypes and test module reliability. Identify failure modes through failure characterization and thermo-mechanical modelling, using these insights to design and realize a demonstrator module that combines reliable performance with easy assembly, controlled disassembly and high-quality material recovery.